Articles By: Dan Ryan and Matt West
With Thomas faltering, time to give the youngster Rask a chance to prove himself.
Dan Ryan:
Though the head coach and general manager may be denying it, there seems to be a bit of a goaltending controversy brewing down on Causeway Street. Coming off of a season in which he won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie, Tim Thomas was expected to shoulder the bulk of the load in the Boston Bruins’ crease, with youngster Tuukka Rask serving as his back-up.
Many in the B’s organization and fan base are extremely high on Rask. With that in mind, some scratched their heads when Thomas was re-signed to a four-year, $20 million deal last April. It wasn’t so much the money that was an issue, but the length of the deal: Thomas will be 38 when the contract expires. With Rask, the Finnish Phenom, waiting in the wings, why sign Thomas for that long of a term?
Thomas’ slow start to the season did little to quiet a segment of B’s fans who wanted Rask to get his shot at the number one job, and when Thomas was sidelined recently due to an undisclosed injury, Rask not only seized the opportunity, but took it and ran with it.
Rask dropped his first game against the Islanders, a 4-1 loss that featured a putrid effort by the team as a whole. However, Rask started and won the next four games, all of which were on the road. Rask was the losing goalie in last Friday’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Devils, but he played well enough to win. In the six games he started while Thomas was on the shelf, Rask went 4-1-1, and allowed a total of 13 goals for a goals against average of 2.17.
On the season as a whole, Rask is 7-2-2 with one shutout. His GAA of 2.02 is second-best in the NHL, and his .929 save percentage is third-best. In comparison, Thomas has a record of 6-6-3, a save percentage of .915 (15th) and a GAA of 2.36 (10th). Thomas is tied for the league lead in shutouts with three.
As the numbers show, it’s far from a slam dunk to say that Rask should be starting over Thomas at this point. The problem is that recently, Rask has been outplaying Thomas. While it’s true that Thomas has been hobbled by the aforementioned undisclosed injury, he was healthy enough to dress for each game Rask started, meaning he could have played if needed.
In his most recent start against the Ottawa Senators, Thomas allowed a goal on the first shot he faced. The second goal he allowed was not his fault, as it came on a power play that turned into a 5-on-3 disadvantage when Patrice Bergeron was felled by a slap shot. However, with the B’s holding a 3-2 lead with under 20 seconds to play, Thomas allowed an infuriating goal to the Sens’ Milan Michalek to tie the game. The goal came as Michalek was nearly below the goal line, and he simply flicked the puck on goal. The puck squirted through Thomas’ legs, and the game was tied.
To his credit, Thomas took the blame for the goal, and bounced back to win the game in a shooutout. The point is, though, that Rask has played better as of late, and led the B’s during what was arguably their best stretch of the season thus far. Thomas has been deemed the number-one goalie, and one has to wonder if it has anything to do with his contract or with last season’s achievements.
The Bruins are currently blessed with a “problem” that many teams would love to have: they have two goalies who, at the moment at least, seem capable of carrying the starting-netminder load. Thomas has the proven track record of the past two seasons to back him up, while Rask has played better as of late.
The B’s brass have insisted that there is no “goalie controversy” and that instead Thomas is 1A and Rask 1B. However, with Rask playing much better as of late and appearing to grow more confident with each start, Claude Julien should be, to use a hockey cliché, “riding the hot hand,” and letting the youngster play until he falters.
What’s the worst that could happen? If he does extremely well, the B’s could be faced with deciding whether or not to deal Thomas and make Rask, the “goalie of the future,” the goalie of the present instead. If he falters quickly, the B’s can insert the proven, Vezina-winning Thomas back between the pipes, knowing that they have a fully-capable back-up waiting in the wings.
One thing is for sure: Rask’s full potential will never be realized if he doesn’t get a chance to start regularly. With his play recently, he’s earned that chance, and he should get it.
Thomas has proven that he can be the number one
Matt West:
The Boston Bruins have dealt with their fair share of injuries so far this season, with Milan Lucic, Marc Savard and Tim Thomas missing significant time. As a result, they have yet to catch fire and win at a consistent rate like they did last season. Thomas, in particular, has struggled this year, looking inconsistent and sometimes shoddy in net. Last year, of course, was his coming-out party, as he won the Vezina Trophy as the best goalie in the NHL, while posting impressive statistics (his .933 save-percentage and 2.10 goals against average were career highs).
With Manny Fernandez holding down back-up duties last season and young stud Tuukka Rask primed to battle him for minutes, Thomas thrived while leading the Bruins to a their first regular-season Eastern Conference championship since the 2001-2002 season. This year, with his numbers down a bit, pundits are quick to jump on Thomas for not performing up to lofty expectations.
A lot of Thomas’ struggles can be attributed to the mysterious injury he has been battling. After missing the previous six games before Saturday night’s overtime win against Ottawa, Thomas returned to net and played well enough to squeak out a shoot-out victory against a tough division opponent. With the win, the B’s are right back in the mix, currently one point behind Buffalo in the Northeast division.
Trying to be tight-lipped à la Bill Belichick, Thomas, head coach Claude Julien and the rest of the Bruins staff have been mum on the severity or even location of the injury.
For the team, and to some extent the fan base, pushing Thomas out the back door in hopes that Rask will evolve into one of the better goaltenders in the league is a bad idea. At this point in his young career, Rask is not ready to handle full-time duties, having only started a total of 16 games in his short career.
When a team wins or loses games, the first person everyone looks at is the goalie. For Thomas this season, many of the team’s losses were a result of their sluggish offense not generating enough scoring chances to win games at a consistent rate.
When Savard, a guy who plays a Sidney Crosby-like role on this team with his crisp passes and ability to read the ice as well as anyone, went down, the team lost an edge. Scoring has been a problem and as a result more pressure has been heaped on Thomas.
Even with his struggles this year, Thomas still has a fairly-respectable 2.36 GAA. With the return of some of their top guys, the B’s are finally getting healthy (minus Lucic, who recently hurt his ankle after coming back from a previous injury). In addition, they are getting production from guys like Michael Ryder and Patrice Bergeron, the latter of whom has had one of the best starts of his career.
The Bruins are better off with a platoon of Thomas and Rask, who have varying styles but, when healthy, can both be very effective. Making a judgment this early in the season can be dangerous. As we saw last year with the Pittsburgh Penguins, you don’t have to play at a perfect level all season, just when it matters in March and April.
